Death by Curiosity
by Charis77
Summary: Sequel to "Backup Plan": Brian Roundtree tries to discover the true identity of "Chell."


This story is a sequel to my other story "Backup Plan." I recommend reading it first before this one for context, though it _can_ stand alone.

* * *

Brian Roundtree _knew_ he should have just let it go. Why didn't he? Hadn't George told him just to drop it, to forget about? But as the proverbial phrase went, "Curiosity killed the cat." At least, that was Brian's current ironic thought as he dangled helplessly over the vat of acid.

Only three months previous to the desperate state he now found himself in, fate had intervened in Brian's life. _I interviewed her_, he thought as he glanced down again, staring his death in the face. _Why did I interview her?_ It was all because of her that he found himself in this position.

She was simply a little girl, skinny with long, tousled black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She'd been added to Brian's testing interviews abruptly. He hadn't planned on interviewing a bunch of snotty-nosed kids until the First Annual Take Your Daughter to Work Day, but for some reason, the powers-that-be decided _she_ had to be interviewed _now_. Tom had handed him the new file with the instruction, "Take your time with this one. She's important." He'd inquired as to the reason for such a directive and received a curt reply not to ask questions and do as he was told.

Incensed, Brian had pushed his indignation down and entered the interview room. Sitting at the table was the nondescript little girl, staring directly at him beneath her furrowed brow. She kept that infernal stare up during the entire interview. He'd asked her name, she'd muttered, "Chell," and from that point forward said nothing else. He'd come to the angry conclusion that she could never be tested. He didn't even think she'd perform the tests at all if they put her in the track. Way too much tenacity, more than he'd ever seen.

So Brian had sent her out the door. He'd told Tom the results. Tom folded his hands across his chest, annoyed, and argued for the better part of an hour that Brian had to have gotten the results wrong. The heated discussion that followed only died down when Tom began to admit that, perhaps this was inevitable, when he'd said, "Well, I guess this can't be helped. Knowing who her dad was, I shouldn't be surprised, but, dang! I thought we had something here. Something that would push our portal development up by decades!"

As Tom had dejectedly walked out the door, reluctant to reveal the results to the Aperture Science Board, Brian had opened the girl's file once again. Who her dad _was_? He'd glanced over the file before the interview, but at the time nothing had struck him as unusual. Now he took a closer look. First Name: Chell. Last Name: Redacted. Next to the blanks for the names of her parents was scrawled a hasty "adopted." That explained it then. Brian didn't know her father, that is, her biological father. He knew that she was Bob whatever-his-last-name-is's kid. He'd seen her with Bob above ground a couple times. He didn't know Bob well, but he knew that Tom couldn't have been talking about Bob. Bob was a scrawny mouse with glasses. He didn't mirror his "daughter's" personality in any way, shape or form.

And yet, Brian still couldn't let it go. Why redact her last name? If she was adopted, they could just put in Bob's last name. Couldn't they? Then why not? He'd taken his occupied mind down to the break room and ended up pouring out his thoughts to George who had sensibly told him to let it go. She wasn't going to be tested, so who cared anyway?

Brian felt his aching fingers begin to slip. He tried to hold tighter. He could get out of this, couldn't he? He dared not glance back down at the acid for fear his stomach would wretch and his resolve would falter. Trying to push thoughts of the end far away from his mind, Brian conceded to himself that in fact, the interviewing of the little girl had only been the beginning. It was his own actions that had put him in this terrible spot holding on for dear life.

He'd spent the next few days interviewing dozens of new employees, determining their testing worth. Yet the little girl with the long black hair kept intruding at the back of his mind. He wanted to know who her father really was and why Tom had pinned his hopes on an eight year old kid. Working at Aperture Science, Brian had pretty much gotten used to being left in the dark. So, it should have been easy for him to just let this mystery go by the wayside. But he had a stubborn streak in him as much as the little girl did. His annoyance at being chastised before her interview and his frustration during it morphed into an insatiable curiosity to know who and why.

He'd started by pulling Bob's file, another fateful error. Bob, it turned out, was Bob Smith, a highly ironic and improbable name to Brian's taste. He strongly believed the name was fake. This thought was only bolstered when he found that much of Bob's job history had been blotted out of the file with a permanent black marker. The only job not covered over in ink was his current one: Companion Cube Satisfaction and Morale Officer. Brian didn't quite know what that title meant, but he knew it wasn't an important job as evidenced by the barely $8,000 a year salary. The file told him little else, but that lack of information propelled his need to know to the next level.

His next step had been to befriend Bob personally. He'd gone out of his way to frequent the locker rooms and break rooms near Bob's work. He'd nonchalantly asked Bob out after work, invited him to join other employees at birthday parties and even offered to help him out on the Companion Cube line. Bob had declined every invitation, every offer. Brian wondered if a more direct approach was needed. Once again, he'd hung around Bob's locker room. When Bob had walked in, Brian had sidled up next to him.

"Hey, Bob! Good day on the line?"

Bob jumped, then put his hand over his heart. "You scared me. Didn't see you there when I came in."

"Yeah, sorry, hey, I wondered if I could ask you a question."

Bob turned to his locker with a worried look. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Well, I interviewed your daughter a while back and her file was interesting and I just wondered…"

"Stop." Bob suddenly turned to Brian, his grey eyes serious. His brow was wrinkled in concern.

"I didn't mean to intrude, I just wondered…"

"I said stop. You don't know what you're asking me."

"Look, what is the deal here? I just want to know who her parents are. I know she's adopted. I'm just curious."

Bob came so close to Brian their noses almost touched. "_They_ know you've been following me, shadowing me. _They_ told me. For your sake, man, leave me alone."

Brian's heart had pumped into his throat as fear flooded his emotions. Even then, he'd foolishly talked on.

"Who's they?"

"I've said too much. Let it go. Don't come back down here, to my locker, to the break room. Just don't come back."

Bob had slammed his locker door shut and left carrying a small covered test tube filled with clear liquid. Brian sighed and leaned back against the locker. He supposed now he'd _have_ to let the matter drop. Then he'd heard whispered voices out in the hall, not far from the locker room. He'd pressed his ear to the small crack of the door and listened. He recognized Bob's voice, but the other was unknown to him.

"What did he ask about?" the unknown voice asked.

"Nothing," Bob answered.

"Come on. We've been watching him closely."

"Just, he's just curious, you know. There's no harm done by it."

"No harm? When you took her in, you promised never to tell."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn't say anything."

"We saw."

"Of course you did."

"This isn't a joking matter."

"I know that." There was a long pause, then, "But really, what does it matter who knows now?"

"What does it matter?" the unknown voice's volume rose sharply, then just as suddenly decreased. "Do you know what would happen if they all knew who she was? If GLaDOS knew? It could ruin years of work."

"You can't keep her hidden forever."

"Want to bet?"

"I just want to go home. Can I go now?"

"Fine. Go. But don't you ever say anything."

"I won't!" Bob sounded exasperated.

Two pairs of footsteps rang out down the hall: one moving towards the elevator and another passing by the locker room door. Brian caught a short glimpse of the back of an unknown employee, obviously a scientist as evidenced by the white lab coat. In a stupid, breathless move, he'd decided to follow the scientist. Moving as quietly as he could, he traced the man as far as he was able until the scientist had taken refuge in an elevator marked "Top Secret: No Unauthorized Employees Unless Sanctioned by Management."

That settled it then. There was something about this girl. Something secret, and Brian thought, something wrong. Something terribly wrong.

In spite of Bob's warning, Brian's determination steeled all the more. He'd let a couple days pass and then he'd visited the Daycare Center, ostensibly to check it out for a cousin with a couple kids who was thinking of applying at Aperture. While talking to a Daycare worker who was as cold and inviting as nails, he'd asked to take a tour of the facilities. The worker had obliged, albeit disagreeably, and had marched him through the classroom. There Brian spotted the little girl, arms folded at her desk, looking bored to tears as the teacher flashed pictures of potatoes on the projector screen explaining the many uses of the veggies.

The worker pushed him on, guiding him down the hall and through the copy room to the back of the center. He'd paused then and asked what kind of breaks the students received.

"Breaks?" had been the stiff reply and the female worker had given him an astonished stare.

"No…recess?" he asked sheepishly. For some reason, this woman made him feel like _he_ was back in school.

"No. We take our daycare duties seriously, Mr. Roundtree."

"Yeah, I didn't mean to imply…Well, then when does the day end?"

"Promptly at 4:00. All parents must pick them up immediately."

"Okay, thanks."

Brian had managed to pass his interview duty off on a new employee and so spent the next three hours hanging around near the Daycare Center, waiting. Finally, at around 3:59, students started filing out of the center and being picked up by parents. Brian spotted the girl immediately and made a beeline for her. If Bob would say nothing, maybe the girl would. Maybe her stubbornness would take a back seat for once and he could find out the truth.

He'd almost made it to her when he heard a loud voice call out, "Chell!" Turning, Brian saw Bob rushing towards the girl. As Bob passed by, Brian noticed a slight turning of the head as the adoptive father acknowledged his presence with what Brian could only conceive of as a warning glance. Bob had whisked the girl away from the center to an elevator. Brian was left chagrinned. He'd walked back to his office and sat down at his desk.

_You have to let it go_, he told himself. _This is too big for you_. So he'd resigned himself to defeat. He'd pulled out the files for the next batch of interviewees to sort them for the following day. Just before he left the office, he saw that he had received a new e-mail message. The message was short and oddly anonymous. The anonymity hardly fazed him; the cold fear produced by the message overshadowed any nameless sender.

"You should have stayed away. They are coming for you. Get out if you can. This message will be erased ten seconds after it is opened."

Brian stood up from his desk and pulled nervously at his tie as his computer screen blinked and the message disappeared. He grabbed the pile of files next to his desk and stuffed them in his briefcase, then bolted for the door. He was too late. As he swung the door open, two men in brown suits stood there staring at him.

"It's time you came with us, Mr. Roundtree," one of them intoned ominously.

And so it was that Brian found himself forced into an orange jumpsuit, handed a new prototype for a handheld portal device and dumped into the same testing tracks he'd interviewed hundreds for. He quickly found that discussing the testing tracks with someone and actually running them were two very different things. He discovered that despite his own persevering nature, he didn't have what it took to complete the tests. It didn't help that his device kept malfunctioning, a fact that resulted more often than not in a scientist entering his current testing chamber and replacing the device with a new design. Each time he begged to be let out, assuring them he was of no use to them. The scientists kept insisting that he was part of a process far more vital than he knew, that through his help in the testing process they would be able to make more precise, more accurate ASHPDs.

Brian sucked in a slow breath. Here he was in Test Chamber 11. He didn't have any clue which testing track he was on. It wouldn't have helped anyway. He'd conducted the interviews, but he'd never really studied the maps of the tracks. He stretched his neck to look far above him. There was the orange portal he'd shot. The one he'd thought would send him careening to safety, only he'd overshot and just managed to keep himself from sliding into the moat of acid that made up most of the chamber. He found himself dangling from the edge of the moat, his fingers the only hope between himself and certain death.

Brian tried once again to pull himself over the edge. He couldn't do it. He knew that behind him, up in a booth, there was an employee sitting there, waiting to see what would happen. He wondered if they let all test subjects die like this. Had he interviewed people only to send them to the great unknown? Or was his case special? Did they rescue the test subjects when they got themselves in a jam? Did that mean they were letting him die only because he'd been so persistent, wanting to find out the identity of the girl?

He never knew the answer to his questions. Even as he called out for help, Brian felt his last grip loosen. In but a moment, the acid claimed its victim and a new test subject was slated for entry into Chamber 11.

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Author's Note: The final installment of this storyline can be found in the story "Father's Fidelity, Daughter's Destiny" on my page.


End file.
